


In Circles

by doorwaytoparadise



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/M, figure skating AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-19 16:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13708482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doorwaytoparadise/pseuds/doorwaytoparadise
Summary: Eurydice and Orpheus, Hades and Persephone. Professional figure skaters and their respective former champion skater coaches. A Hadestown figure skating AU.





	1. Eurydice

Eurydice likes the cold. She likes the sharp sting of icy air and the way her breath comes out in wisps. The world goes quiet, clearer in the cold, and for a while, everything is calm. She didn’t always like it, when she had been small and young and alone, staring at rooms that were filled with other children but still always felt too big. The cold used to be something to dread, but Eurydice had grown and worked and worked and worked until the cold was her domain.

Eurydice races across the ice, spins, leaps, _flies_. Skating toes a thin line between beauty and danger, but it always brings Eurydice calm. She likes the hard work and the satisfaction that comes with it, she likes the control it gives her, she likes the stability. Routines were reliable, like a solid mold she could pour all of herself into and end up with something beautiful. She could narrow her focus, let everything fall away, and the fluttering nervous tension that almost always followed her would quiet. The ice welcomed her, and she threw herself onto it happily.

She wasn’t alone, though. There were fellow skaters, other students at her rink, and her coach. Her coach, who was Hades, a retired professional skater himself, a once-world champion, a star. The skating world had thought him gruff, stiff, cold. Eurydice knew him as fair, encouraging, understanding. He never doubted her and he never pushed too hard, a kindred spirit who found his calm on the ice too, even now. There were mornings Hades skated lazy circles around the rink and sometimes, Eurydice would join him, which always earned her a rare smile.

Eurydice thinks of the worn benches, the certain way the rink echoes, the mural along one wall, and thinks ’ _home_ ’. She does not think of her sunlit kitchen or her overfilled bookshelves or the plants in the window. Home is not anything from her apartment that’s full of things but still so empty. It is slipping on her skates and gliding out to the center of the rink, it is Hades pacing along the side and nodding approvingly, it is the sound of other skaters laughing. Eurydice never had a home growing up, but she made herself one here.


	2. Orpheus

Orpheus liked the thrill. He enjoyed the adrenaline kick, the energy of a crowded rink, the way a routine left him breathless. He thinks there’s something profound in the beauty of the sport, something poetic in the movements. Even as a child, he had seen something mesmerizing, and had wanted it.

Orpheus saw beauty in just about everything. He was an artist, sensitive in his heart, and he was often moved by simple things. The arch of a fellow skater’s back as they spun, the scrape of skates over ice, these were things he loved. He had grown up surrounded by beautiful things, but they had been untouchable, forbidden. His parents were rich and not exactly cold, but maybe something like dismissive. All the beautiful things in their home had been ’ _look, but don’t touch_ ’, and Orpheus had tucked into himself, folding his hands behind his back, feeling stifled and trapped.

Orpheus wanted to make beauty, but he didn’t want the rigid lines he had grown up with. Music was a comfort, but inspiration was hard to come by. He lost himself in art museums and looming theater walls, but those weren’t enough, some sort of wanderlust still making his skin itch. Desperate for something stimulating, he had found his father’s cousin.

Persephone was beautiful. She did beautiful things and wore beautiful outfits, but she was not constricted like a fragile piece of art, and Orpheus adored her immediately. She was tough and strong and liked to garden and sometimes picked fights, and she never held herself back from being friendly. She was nothing like his mother’s ramrod straight spine, or the way his father’s eyes seemed to pass over him. Orpheus watched Persephone, covered in dirt from planting flowers. Orpheus watched Persephone, glittering in a graceful spin. Orpheus watched Persephone, surely the most definitive example of ‘beautiful’ he had ever seen, and asked her to teach him. Persephone had grinned in delight.

Persephone was his coach. A world-famous ex-skater, who proved very quickly she was more than just beauty. She was smart and skilled, and could haul a grown man over her shoulder with ease. She was friendly and encouraging and enthusiastic, and she had just the right teaching style for Orpheus. She wasn’t demanding, but she demanded hard work and practice and focus, because skating was beautiful, but not like Orpheus had always known. Skating was wild and exciting and boundary-breaking techniques, and in the midst of all that, Orpheus thrived.

There was a home to be found on the ice. The world would rush by, or the world would narrow down to a spotlight, or the world would become a single room thrumming with energy, and it filled Orpheus up with something between ecstasy and satisfaction. There was a roaring in his ears, that only died away when he struck his final pose, chest heaving, and the applause would break through. It calmed the restlessness in his bones, and the memory of a stiff and confined childhood fuzzed at the edges. The audience would cheer, Persephone would hug him, and Orpheus would think ’ _this is beautiful_ ’.


End file.
